Question: What ethical dilemmas have you faced and how did you resolved them?
Noam Chomsky: There's fundamental questions that are arising all the time. Like, how do I distribute my work and energy and effort? Every minute of the day you have to face such questions. Sometimes they're—I wouldn't exactly call it an ethical dilemma, but—although I guess it is.
For example, in the early '60s, I had to make a really hard, for me, hard decision. Should I start becoming really active, instead of just talking, in critical human issues that were arising then? The war in Vietnam, the growing war in Vietnam, civil rights movement, many others. So should I become really active in those or should I devote my time and energy to very exciting intellectual work and to my growing family? I had little children.
Well, that's a hard decision.
I knew perfectly well that you can't just put your foot in it and walk away. If you get started, it's a growing commitment. And my wife [Carol Chomsky] and I had to work that out in some fashion. It was not simple. In fact, at one point, she actually had to go back to college after 17 years because it looked as though—if I might serve a long prison sentence and we had three kids to take care of. Well, there's decisions, that's a serious decision, but there are lots of others all the time.
Recorded on: Aug 18, 2009
Noam Chomsky recounts how his anti-Vietnam War activities nearly jeopardized his family.
LinkedIn meets Tinder in this mindful networking app
Swipe right to make the connections that could change your career.
Swipe right. Match. Meet over coffee or set up a call.
No, we aren't talking about Tinder. Introducing Shapr, a free app that helps people with synergistic professional goals and skill sets easily meet and collaborate.
4 reasons Martin Luther King, Jr. fought for universal basic income
In his final years, Martin Luther King, Jr. become increasingly focused on the problem of poverty in America.
- Despite being widely known for his leadership role in the American civil rights movement, Martin Luther King, Jr. also played a central role in organizing the Poor People's Campaign of 1968.
- The campaign was one of the first to demand a guaranteed income for all poor families in America.
- Today, the idea of a universal basic income is increasingly popular, and King's arguments in support of the policy still make a good case some 50 years later.
Why avoiding logical fallacies is an everyday superpower
10 of the most sandbagging, red-herring, and effective logical fallacies.
- Many an otherwise-worthwhile argument has been derailed by logical fallacies.
- Sometimes these fallacies are deliberate tricks, and sometimes just bad reasoning.
- Avoiding these traps makes disgreeing so much better.
Why I wear my life on my skin
For Damien Echols, tattoos are part of his existential armor.
- In prison Damien Echols was known by his number SK931, not his name, and had his hair sheared off. Stripped of his identity, the only thing he had left was his skin.
- This is why he began tattooing things that are meaningful to him — to carry a "suit of armor" made up the images of the people and objects that have significance to him, from his friends to talismans.
- Echols believes that all places are imbued with divinity: "If you interact with New York City as if there's an intelligence behind... then it will behave towards you the same way."
SMARTER FASTER trademarks owned by The Big Think, Inc. All rights reserved.